Closed for almost two years, the walk-up window features traditional 19th hole grill fare such as burgers, hot dogs and a fish fry upgrades. It’s attracting those hitting golf balls or those just looking for a quick bite.

“You should see our strawberry garden salad,” said DeBenedetti, who has been teaching golf at the driving range for 16 years. He and Holder, a former player, now coach the “Saratoga Sparks” girls’ travel team. Holder, now 35, who played hoops at Columbia H.S. in East Greenbush, is the girls’ varsity coach at his alma mater, and DeBenedetti is the girls’ coach at Gardner-Dickinson School in Wynantskill. When they were on the road this spring – whether Lake Placid, Boston or Connecticut – these basketball junkies had plenty of time to chat about more than basketball.

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“We spend a lot of time in the car together and we’ve been good friends,” DeBenedetti said. “I kept saying to Jabari somebody should open it and Jabari said ‘why not us?’”

“And that was it,” said Holder, who is also teaching part-time. “I’ve worked in some of the high schools around here and decided to put some of those skills to use in my own business.”

“The Eatery” reopened its window on July 1 after a good scrubbing and some minor improvements like a new refrigerator. They estimate 80% of the equipment was intact but for an ice cream shop, they needed to rehab the soft-serve machine.

“The first day we turned it on it didn’t work,” said DeBenedetti. He brags about the fish fry which is “fresh everyday. We bread them when you order them. “Our chicken sandwiches, they’re chicken breast that we cut ourselves. They’re not frozen.

“We do them when you order them. Our food takes five more minutes than say, a McDonald’s, but it’s certainly worth it.”

The kitchen is run by a very pleasant Carphonso Armstrong, the lead cook and 5-star kitchen general. He says, with a laugh, that Bob and Jabari are the new “mom & pop.”

“When it comes to a mom and pop shop you can experiment with whatever you want to experiment with. If it works, that’s what we are going to work with,” Armstrong said. “Whatever we’ve got to do to make this thing as best as possible, that’s what we look forward to doing.”

With the return, they will also deliver to the immediate area along Route 4 to the Rensselaer County Tech Park and HVCC, and that could expand, they said. And on Fridays they hold an “ice cream social,” free ice cream with your meal, and bring in live music Friday nights.

“We try to keep it real close knit,” Holder said. “It’s our community, they are people that we know…The hardest thing was overcoming the inertia of being closed.”